Tag Archives: Secret Recipe Club

For this month’s Secret Recipe Club, I was paired with Rebekah of Making Miracles. Rebekah is a surrogate mother (which is awesome!) and has two kids of her own. Unfortunately, her 17 year old son recently had a stroke and so I ask you to spare a moment to pray for his recovery! She focuses on making food that is “quick, easy and family friendly!”

She has a large selection of baked goods, but I was visiting Mr. Bean in Red Deer for the weekend, so I had no access to my usual baking and gluten free flour supplies. I chose her Mushroom Sausage Ragu and it did not disappoint! It was fairly simple and very delicious, making it a perfect dinner. We ended up making about double her original recipe, which made excellent left overs.

I was a bit skeptical at first, but the flavour combination worked out pretty well! I made a few modifications – I made the pancakes gluten and dairy free to make them more “me friendly”. My avocado wasn’t as ripe as I would have liked, but it still worked.

This recipe makes 6 pretty thick pancakes. They had good texture and weren’t dry at all!

Measure out almond milk and add vinegar to create buttermilk. Stir and let sit for a few minutes.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour and xanthan gum.

In a separate bowl, whisk together “buttermilk”, oil and egg.

Add sugar, baking powder and salt and whisk until combined.

Add flour and bacon bits and stir until batter is smooth.

Fold in avocado pieces, being careful not to mash them.

Scoop out 1/2 c. batter onto griddle for each pancake. (Sue recommends to lower griddle temperature at this point, but I didn’t and they still worked out fine.) If pancakes need to be sculpted on the griddle, add more milk so the batter is thin enough to flatten out slightly itself.

When pancake forms bubbles on top and you can get a spatula beneath without trouble, flip the pancake and brown the other side until the pancake is springy but firm to the touch.

I did modify the recipe as I had basil to use up, so I replaced the cilantro in my version. I added garlic because what pesto is complete without garlic? I used my single serve blender instead of a food processor as it’s much easier to clean. I think pestos are supposed to be chunkier, but I blended mine smooth. I used hemp hearts instead of the feta as I had it on hand and I try not to eat a lot of cheese.

I tried it both warm and cold and I prefer the cold version of it. It goes very well with barbecued meat, making this the perfect healthy summer side dish! Mr. Bean and I liked it so much we are definitely adding it into our repertoire!

For May’s Secret Recipe Club, I was paired with Christie of A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures. She likes to cook healthy and low fat – and has lost ~100 lbs, which is quite the accomplishment! Christie is definitely an example of how healthy recipes don’t have to be bland or boring!

I ended up choosing her Bean and Basil Pesto Penne and I was definitely pleasantly surprised with the results! I’ve always wanted to try pesto, but it seemed really complicated or full of dairy. Fortunately, Christie’s version is simple (2 steps!), vegan and delicious! Mr Bean liked it so much that he had huge amounts of seconds! I upped the recipe a bit so that I would use the entire 398mL (14 oz) can of beans.

Like this:

For March’s Secret Recipe Club, I was paired with Sarah of Fantastical Sharing. Sarah also happens to be the powerhouse behind Secret Recipe Club, plus she has a newborn and manages to post multiple times each week. Say what? (I have none of those things and struggle greatly with posting on a regular basis. haha) Not only is she a champion at life, she has tons of delicious recipes *and* is going to school to become a teacher (did I mention she has three kids!?). Sarah, you truly are an amazing, talented person!

I really had a difficult time choosing what to make, but I ended up making a version of her Reese’s Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookie Bars. I made them gluten & egg free, mostly dairy free (I couldn’t find any dairy-free peanut butter cups) and reduced the sugar to 1 c.

I don’t like the Reese’s peanut butter baking chips (I find them too sweet and they sit weird in my stomach), so I wanted to substitute them with something else peanut butter-y. I thought that if I froze peanut butter in small chunks then it would stick together and not mix into the dough, but that totally did not work. Just an FYI – don’t expect peanut butter to freeze and stay as chunks. It literally melts two seconds after it was removed from the freezer. Perhaps non-natural peanut butter would have worked better? In the end I used extra chocolate chips.

The original recipe also said to use a 9″x13″ dish, but I think my dough was too stiff to try to spread it out that much, so I made it in a 9″ x 9″ pan. It turned out almost more like a cookie-cake instead of a bar, but it was still definitely tasty. Or should I say amazing? I had to keep them out of sight to prevent myself from eating them all!